Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Another cracked chassis !

Fantastic response by Morgan, slightly worrying to hear of another failure however - it would be a useful exercise to compile some more data around the failings, as suggested above.

Mine is a very early car (number 28) with the original chassis with all the modifications, hopefully it doesn't suffer the same fate!

I suspect road surface quality, distance driven and temperature all have an impact on the generation of fatigue cracks. Your roads are generally good and it is normally warm to hot. So I suspect that your chassis is less likely to fail than those on M3Ws that endure UK roads and cool summers...
Chassis replacement is virtually a re-build, in that the engine, steering and suspension are fitted to a new chassis, then the body is transferred over. My understanding is that it isn't normally a dealer job.

I can confirm that the bolt in brace will not stop the cracking/fracturing of the chassis. My 2013 car had the bolt in brace fitted Oct 2015 but fractured April 2017. It took 3 months for MMC to return it round with a new chassis. I got them to fit the Centa compensator and check the clutch at the same time. I just paid the parts cost of the Centa. I believe RedThree had one of his new chassis turned round in 3 weeks. The Centa may have caused a delay if parts were not available but if you have early HD type at least ask.

I'm currently performing an experiment. My chassis is a 2012 one, but when other people's chassis started cracking (and before the bolt-in brace was available) I asked Morgan to weld in the A-brace. So far so good, but the car has only done around 11k miles. Fingers crossed!

Very disturbing news for many I suspect....

Hugo,

Do you have some more pics for us ? So it will easier to look on the right place where to search for cracks.

It’s astonishing that not more members writing reaction on this thread because this is one of the most serious problems our M3W can have.
This is proved by the way MMC react by replacing the chassis.
But this doesn’t help the ones who’s having the same “weak” chassis and still need to drive around with it.
They all need to keep an eye (day by day, mile by mile) on this dangerous problem and keep the fingers crossed that nothing serious will happen.
For me it’s 100% sure the “older” chassis are build from the “wrong” type tubing material.
BUT NOBODY WILL EVER ADMIT THAT !!!!

It’s like the Covid19 virus.
You know it’s there, but you don’t know if you will get it.
The bolt-in brace is like a mouth cap.
Stay safe, stay in lockdown which means keep your M3W in your garage.

more pictures

The crack is behind the upper wishbone mount, you can see how the chassis has moved forward and is rubbing on the bodywork

Cracking started on the other side